


I Loved Her First

by srmiller



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Multi, olicity - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 09:37:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3351848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/srmiller/pseuds/srmiller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felicity goes to meet her father and Team Arrow helps how they can</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Loved Her First

She'd almost backed out twice.

The first time was when she was getting ready, she’d spent an hour trying to decide to what to wear. Pants or a skirt? Hair up or down? Glasses or contacts?

In a panic she'd called Thea who had told her to wear whatever made her feel strong and immediately Felicity had pictured the outfit she’d worn the day Oliver had taken control of QC before Isabel could steal it from him. There were good memories associated with that skirt, and those memories made her strong.

The second time was ten minutes before she was supposed to meet her father, she’d been ready to back out but Roy with his awkward wisdom had caught her pacing outside the club with her phone clutched in her hand.

"You should go."

Turning, she’d met his eyes and seen a seriousness there she didn’t often see in his young eyes. "I know I should, I just don’t know if I can."

"You got to figure out how," Roy told her. "Because if you don’t see him and something happens and you find out this was your last chance to get answers you’ll never forgive yourself for missing it. Trust me."

Felicity’s heart broke at the look of regret in the younger man’s eyes. Oliver may be a venerable fortress of secrets, but Roy was so quiet about his you never realized he was keeping them.

"Your dad?"

He nodded, shoving his hands in to the pockets of his hoodie, his feet shoulder width apart as if braced for an attack. 

"He showed up at my door shortly before I met Thea, and wanted to repair our relationship," he bit the word out as if it had been choking him. "I shut the door in his face and proceeded to get into as many fights as I could find. It never occurred to me I might regret turning him away until I found out he died a few months later."

"The Undertaking." 

Roy shook his head, “The after shocks. There was a lot of crime in the Glades after the earthquake machine, my dad was mugged and shot for ten bucks and a pair of shoes. And I’ve regretted the choice I made every day since he showed up at my door.”

Stepping forward those hard planes of his face softened, “I’m not saying you’ll love the guy. Hell, you may not even like him. But I’d give just about anything to be able to look my dad in the eye and ask ‘why?’”

And because he’d been right Felicity showed up at a 24 hour diner in the Glades with her hands shaking.

Oliver had even offered to come with her, as had Digg, but she’d known she needed to do this by herself because even as she walked towards an empty booth she knew she doing this by herself wasn’t the same as doing it alone.

Digg had sent her a picture of Sara covered in applesauce to make her smile, Oliver had texted “you’ve got this” right as she was parking with Roy and Thea’s words young wisdom echoing in her mind.

No she wasn't alone.

After sitting in a booth she watched the clock and five minutes past with only one person coming in to the diner, an older gentleman at least eighty walking with a cane and teasing the waitress as if he was a regular.

It was another ten minutes before she started to let herself understand her father wouldn’t be coming and when the bell over the door rang she looked up with tears in her eyes, already knowing her father wouldn’t be standing there.

Instead, to her surprise, it was Oliver.

And Roy, and Thea.

Tears slipped from her eyes, and she was grateful she hadn’t worn contacts as she wipe them away.

Thea slid into the booth first, Roy sitting beside her on the bench and grabbing the menu on the table, “Do they got anything worth eating here?”

"Look there’s a little jukebox on the table." Thea poked Roy, "Do you have a quarter?"

"Don’t you have money?"

"I’m a Queen," she retorted hotly. "I don’t carry change."

He rolled his eyes but dug out a couple of quarters as Oliver sat beside Felicity on her side of the booth, his arm stretching behind her back to rest of the bench.

"What, were you guys sitting out in the parking lot?" Felicity asked with a watery smile.

"Across the street," he admitted, kissing her temple. "Are you hungry?"

Felicity nodded, feeling so well loved it was hard to contain it inside her heart, “Starved.”

\------------------

Outside the diner a man in a worn out suit sat in a car.

He’d been sitting there for twenty minutes and couldn’t find it him to go inside, even after he saw the beautiful blonde walk in. The beautiful blonde who couldn’t have been anyone but his daughter.

He’d almost gotten the nerve to get out of the car when he saw three people climb out of an expensive SUV and walk inside. Through the windows he could see his daughter smile at their entrance, and when he saw the group laugh, their heads leaning towards each other in a gesture of familiarity, of family, he knew there was no need to go in.

He started his car and pulled out of the parking lot.

It’s not like she needed him anyway.


End file.
